The following recently came off of the Rootsweb mailing list. I thought it
was a great reminder for things we often forget to do. Hope someone can
benefit from it.
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE CEO, by Robert R. Tillman
o REFLECTIONS OF A NEWBIE. If you are not a RootsWeb newbie,
then you may wish to skip what follows. After almost seven
months as CEO at RootsWeb, I would like to share with other
newbies some lessons that I have learned.
1. Only a small fraction of genealogy-related information is on
the Web. Most is in the form of books, documents (many hand
written), photographs, microfilm and microfiche held by tens of
thousands of libraries, genealogy societies, churches, local,
state and national government archives, and other organizations.
Much of the best information is located in the attics, file
cabinets, book shelves and computers of millions of individual
genealogists. If you are frustrated in searching the Web for
genealogy information on the Web, there is good reason. Most of
what you are looking for is not yet there.
2. The quickest way to make progress in genealogical research is
to connect with someone who is further along or is more
experienced than you are. I recently asked my father to document
as much as he could remember about his family history. He
surprised me by saying that he had just received from a distant
relation a family tree printout containing details on 150
individuals in our line going back to 1850. This information
likely will save me many weeks or months of research.
3. The primary purpose and function of RootsWeb is to connect
people so that they can help each other and share genealogical
research. Most resources on RootsWeb are designed to facilitate
such connections. Genealogy on RootsWeb is a vast cooperative
research project, possibly the largest group software
application in existence. The hundreds of gigabytes of data on
RootsWeb are a byproduct of millions of online genealogists
sharing research.
4. The best ways for you to connect to others on RootsWeb are
to ask for help, make it easy for others to find you, and give
others help.
Below are my suggestions for connecting to others on RootsWeb.
All features cited below are free.
o Join a mailing list at <
http://www.rootsweb.com/~maillist/>.
A mailing list is simply the e-mail party line. Every e-mail
that a list subscriber sends to the list is distributed to all
other list subscribers. There are more than 17,000 genealogy-
related mailing lists on RootsWeb divided by surname, U.S.
county and state, country, ethnic group, and topic. Subscribing
to a mailing list is one of the best ways of connecting to
people who share your interests. If you do not find a mailing
list covering your topic of interest, start one at
<
http://resources.rootsweb.com/surnames/adoptrequest.html>
o Post a message to a GenConnect message board at
<
http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/>. A message board is a
computerized version of the old-fashioned bulletin board. There
are more than 140,000 message boards on RootsWeb related to
surnames, locations, and topics. By posting a message to the
appropriate message board, you create a record through which
other researchers can find you. If you do not find a message
board covering your topic of interest, start one at
<
http://resources.rootsweb.com/surnames/adoptrequest.html>.
o Post your family surnames on the RootsWeb Surname List (RSL)
at <
http://rsl.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/rslsql.cgi>. The RSL is a
registry of more than 788,000 surname entries that have been
submitted by more than 165,000 online genealogists. Associated
with each surname are dates, locations, and information about
how to contact the person who submitted the surname. The RSL is
one of the primary tools on RootsWeb that online genealogists
use to contact each other.
o Upload your family tree (GEDCOM file) to the RootsWeb
WorldConnect Project at
<
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/>
The RootsWeb WorldConnect Project is a database of family trees
submitted by thousands of RootsWeb researchers currently
containing more than 14 million ancestor names. With your family
tree posted here, other researchers with common ancestors can
find you.
o Add Post-ems to the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) at
<
http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi> and to
the RootsWeb WorldConnect Project at
<
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi>
A Post-em is the electronic equivalent of a yellow sticky note.
It allows you to attach your email address, a link to another
Web address or other information to the record of any individual
in these two databases. Search for your ancestors and leave your
calling card attached to their names.
o Build your own genealogy Web site on RootsWeb. Request free
unlimited Web space on RootsWeb at
<
http://cgi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/acctform.cgi>
RootsWeb hosts more than 11,000 Web sites, most related to
genealogy. Building a basic Web site is not as difficult as you
might imagine. Millions of people have done it. You can get
help from other RootsWeb Webmasters on the mailing lists and
message boards devoted to this subject on RootsWeb.
o Add a link to your Web site to RootsLink at
<
http://resources.rootsweb.com/~rootslink/search.html>.
RootsLink is RootsWeb's Web address registry, where users can
add and categorize a genealogy link from anywhere on the Web.
Currently, there more than 4,000 links on RootsLink.
o Link your Web site to the relevant surname, county, state,
and/or country resource cluster at
<
http://resources.rootsweb.com/utilities/addsite.html>
Thereafter, a link to your Web site will appear at the top of
whatever surname, county and/or state resource cluster(s) you
have chosen. Users specifically interested in the information on
your Web site will see this link whenever they use the RootsWeb
surname resources at <
http://resources.rootsweb.com/surnames/> or
the RootsWeb U.S. county and state resources at
<
http://resources.rootsweb.com/USA/>
This feature is ONLY available for Web sites located at RootsWeb.
o Volunteer. RootsWeb hosts many of the largest volunteer
genealogy projects on the Web. Volunteers locate, transcribe,
and publish genealogical data and help new users. Through this
work they meet other genealogists with similar interests.
Information on volunteer opportunities can be found at:
USGENWEB ARCHIVES CENSUS PROJECT
<
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/census/volunteer.htm>
========snip
PERMISSION TO REPRINT articles from ROOTSWEB REVIEW is granted
unless specifically stated otherwise, PROVIDED: (1) the reprint
is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the
following notice appears at the end of the article:
Written by <author's name, e-mail address, and URL, if
given>. Previously published by
RootsWeb.com, Inc., RootsWeb
Review: RootsWeb's Genealogy News, Vol. 3, No. 2, 12 January
2000. RootsWeb: <
http://www.rootsweb.com/>